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Two newspapers owned by The New York Times Co., the Boston Globe and Worcester (Massachusetts) Telegram & Gazette, said Tuesday they had mistakenly sent out slips of paper with credit card data of up to nearly a quarter million subscribers.
The credit card numbers were been printed on routing slips attached to 9,000 bundles of newspapers sent to retailers and carriers last weekend, according to the newspapers.

I can see how this mess-up might get a carrier the credit-card info for subscribers on his or her route, but what credit card number(s) would be sent to a retailer?

The Globe printed distribution slips on the back of “recycled” computer reports listing subscriber data. These computer reports were the results of aborted computer processing runs. This information was not meant to be distributed to carriers or retailers, but just a means of re-using “scrap” computer paper.
The two big questions are:
1) why does any company take a risk in recycling any unshredded computer reports ?
and
2) why does any company in the 21st century need to print hard-copy of senstitive data, where it can easily be intercepted (or stolen) by employees even if it designated for the shredder?